THE WEEK

By JANICE M. HOROWITZ, LINA LOFARO, MICHAEL QUINN, JEFFERY C. RUBIN, ALAIN L. SANDERS AND SIDNEY URQUART

NATION

BUDGET BEGONE!

Wielding the same pen Lyndon Johnson used to sign both Medicare and Medicaid into law, President Clinton formally scrawled his veto signature over the Republican balanced-budget plan. To replace what he called the G.O.P.'s "extreme" and "wrongheaded" blueprint, which would remake the Federal Government in a more conservative image, the President presented Congress with his own balanced budget--his third of the year. Clinton offered to trim Social Security raises; to cut a bit more out of some domestic programs, including welfare; and to hold the line against deep slashes in education, environmental protection, health care and taxes. The G.O.P. response: Forget it. Further negotiations are scheduled.

BOSNIA MANEUVERS

Faced with a rebellion among conservative Republicans opposed to sending troops to Bosnia, Senate majority leader Bob Dole postponed a vote on a resolution of qualified support for President Clinton's peacekeeping plan. In the House, nearly half the members--mostly Republicans--sent the President a blunt, one-sentence letter: "We urge you not to send ground troops to Bosnia." Clinton said he would not be deterred by congressional dissent.

CHIPPING AWAY AT ROE

By a vote of 54 to 44, the Senate joined the House in approving a bill that would outlaw a rare and particularly gruesome type of late-term abortion. The vote marked the first time since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that both houses of Congress have voted to recriminalize an abortion procedure. Differences must still be worked out between the two chambers, but the President has threatened a veto.

A SPECIAL COUNSEL FOR NEWT

After a year's investigation--longer than Congress took to craft its overhaul of the entire Federal Government--the House ethics committee issued its first pronouncement regarding the array of charges filed against Speaker Newt Gingrich. The panel's biggest decision: to hire a special counsel to investigate the financing of a college course Gingrich taught in Georgia. The panel took no action on a number of other charges but sharply reprimanded the Speaker for his controversial book deal and "the impression" it created of "exploiting one's office for personal gain." Democratic whip David Bonior said he would soon file yet another complaint with the panel: that, as alleged by the Federal Election Commission, Gingrich's 1990 re-election was improperly subsidized by the political-action committee GOPAC.

A WHITEWATER IMPASSE

On a 10-to-8 party-line vote that could lead to a constitutional confrontation, the Senate Whitewater committee issued a subpoena for the notes of former White House aide William Kennedy concerning a Nov. 5, 1993, meeting in which Kennedy and others discussed the scandal. Because the President's personal lawyer was among the participants, Clinton has asserted his lawyer-client privilege in withholding the notes, as well as in ordering aides not to testify.

NEW HEAD FOR N.A.A.C.P.

U.S. Representative Kweisi Mfume was chosen as the new president and executive officer of the N.A.A.C.P. on Saturday, filling a leadership slot that had been empty since the organization's board ousted the controversial Benjamin Chavis last year. Mfume, along with N.A.A.C.P. chairwoman Myrlie Evers-Williams, confronts the daunting task of rebuilding the civil rights group, which faces a multimillion-dollar debt, among other problems.

AT SEA

Still another naval officer has been caught in a sexual- harassment scandal. Rear Admiral Ralph L. Tindal, a deputy NATO commander, was demoted and placed under 30-day house arrest and, to no one's surprise, will take an early retirement after an inquiry found him guilty of harassing a young enlisted woman with whom he had had an affair. Though the relationship was consensual, Tindal reportedly began calling her late at night and otherwise pressuring her when she tried to break it off.

RACE KILLING

In what were apparently racially motivated murders, three white soldiers from Fort Bragg, near Fayetteville, North Carolina, were charged in connection with the gunning down of a local black man and woman who were simply walking down a street; both the victims were shot in the head at close range. According to police, the suspects had been drinking when they set out in a car in search of random black victims. Investigators found what they believe to be the murder weapon in one suspect's off-base home. Also found: Nazi paraphernalia, white-supremacist literature and a bombmaking manual.

CONGRESSMAN CONVICTED

Representative Walter R. Tucker III, whose district includes the city of Compton, just south of Los Angeles, was found guilty by a jury of extortion and tax evasion despite his charge that prosecutors were out to get him solely because he is black. While still proclaiming his innocence, Tucker said he will probably resign his seat in Congress.

A $1 MILLION BIG MAC

Angels exist, at least in the philanthropic sense. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, became the beneficiary of a $1 million giveaway by McDonald's after an anonymous donor mailed a winning contest game piece to the hospital. St. Jude specializes in treating catastrophic children's diseases.

WORLD

U.S. STARTS BOSNIA DEPLOYMENT

Bureaucracy, security concerns and a foot of snow in Sarajevo hampered the arrival of the first 700 U.S. military personnel in the vanguard of NATO's Bosnia peacekeeping effort. Four days after President Clinton gave the order to move out, just 41 American troops had entered the country, along with a larger preparatory team of British soldiers. Most of the advance team is expected to arrive this week before the formal peace treaty between Bosnia's warring parties is signed in Paris on Thursday.

FRANCE UPS NATO COMMITMENT

Nearly three decades after President Charles de Gaulle removed France from NATO's military command and ordered U.S. troops from French soil, Foreign Minister Herve de Charette announced that France will rejoin the alliance's military committee. But France is hardly backing down from its insistence on an independent path in European affairs. French officials credited the move to a pragmatic need for closer coordination between the French troops to be deployed in Bosnia and the nato officers who will command them.

FRANCE: FERMEE!

Striking public workers continued to hobble France as public-transit, mail, electrical-generation and air-transport services were severely disrupted. Angered by the government's decision to try to cut a $50 billion debt in the national social security system by limiting benefits and raising taxes, the workers vowed to continue their strike. Desperate Parisian commuters, battling snow and freezing temperatures, took to bicycles, roller skates, bateaux-mouches (tourist boats) and their own two feet to escape a record 300 miles of traffic jams clogging roads.

BUSINESS

NEWS-CHANNEL MANIA

So far it's been a less than festive holiday season for CNN, which learned it may soon be facing some formidable competitors. Two weeks ago, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch said he was planning to start a 24-hour TV-news service in the U.S. Last week Capital Cities/ABC revealed a plan for taking on CNN with a cable channel it hopes to start in 1997. And then came word of potentially the most forbidding challenge of all: a 24-hour news channel linked to an online-video service that would be parented by the combined talents--and muscle--of NBC and Microsoft. The last two firms are still in talks over their venture, which would face a number of technological hurdles.

TOBACCO FIRE

"The primary reason" smokers light up is to "deliver nicotine into their bodies" and obtain the effects of a substance that is "similar" to drugs like cocaine. The conclusions of a Food and Drug Administration hell-bent on regulating cigarettes as pharmaceuticals? No. These are the conclusions of an undated confidential report by Philip Morris, obtained and published by the Wall Street Journal. Faced with an apparently smoking gun, the tobacco giant explained that the document had been written by a nonscientist and did not reflect the company's views.

--By Janice M. Horowitz, Lina Lofaro, Michael Quinn, Jeffery C. Rubin, Alain L. Sanders and Sidney Urquart